Gilbert and George speak about friendlessness, bigotry in the art world, and their latest exhibition, ‘Jack Freak Pictures,’ opening in London at White Cube next week [Guardian]
Damien Hirst turns down the Royal Academy’s offer to become a Royal Academician [Artdaily]
Thief sentenced to two and half years in Oslo for the 2004 Munch ‘Scream’ Heist [NY Times]
Haunch of Venison will close its Zürich gallery by 2010 [ArtNewspaper]
After concerted effort by Eli Broad, MOCA announces that its financial troubles are over with a number of new gifts and trustees [LA Times] and LACMA also announces new trustees, including Dasha Zhukova, founder of Moscow’s Garage Centre [LA Times]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art responds to economic crisis, cuts 357 positions [Crain's]

Titian’s ‘Triumph of Love’ via Artdaily

Director of Tate Britain Stephen Deuchar is appointed director of Art Fund [ArtReview] in related, the Tate Britain recently bought and secured for Britain Titian’s Triumph of Love [Artdaily] and, finally the Art Fund launched an “Art Saved” resource online [Art Knowledge News]
At least 24 New York galleries have closed since the economic collapse, with a number closing for the summer [Artnet]
Connoisseurs are buying increasingly rare Impressionist and Modern masterpieces [NYTimes]
Why auctions may not be the best method for museums’ deaccessioning [Wall Street Journal]

Cai Guo-Qiang and Shen Wei speaking Lincoln Center via WSJ

Choreographer Shen Wei and artist Cai Guo-Qiang discuss their role in the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies and how changing attitudes in China have affected their work [Wall Street Journal]
ArtTactic’s Art Market Confidence Indicator shows increased confidence in the contemporary art market, with 2/3 of those survey predicting a rebound by 2011 [ArtTactic via The Art Collectors] and more cautious indicators of a rebound [Artnet]

Ji Lee’s ‘Duchamp Reloaded’ via Wooster Collective

Duchampian street sculpture in front of MoMA [Wooster Collective]
Bravo’s art reality show holds open calls and Paddy Johnson speaks with the casting director [Art Fag City]
A work painted in 1623-24 by a fellow scholar depicts Rembrandt at 16 [TheIndependent]
The Pietzch Collection, which includes many rare surrealist art works, opens to public display in Berlin [Monsters and Critics via Art Market Monitor]

Adam Kimmel stands in front of a photo of Nate Lowman as the Marlboro Man via Purple

Riffing on Richard Prince, fashion designer Adam Kimmel has Nate Lowman as the Marlboro Man in a series of photos by the creator of the original ads, Jim Krantz [Purple]
A look at what the latest auctions in London could mean for the outlook of the art market [Financial Times]
How London’s proximity to emerging market art buyers from Middle East, Russia and Asia may now have negative effect [Wall Street Journal]

Rachel Wardell, the first participant in Antony Gormley’s ‘One and Other’ via The GuardianUK

The first participants are announced in Antony Gormley’s ‘One and Other’ on the fourth plinth in Traflagar Square [Guardian]
More Intelligent Life investigates the increased interest in Picasso’s late musketeer paintings and finds links between the artist’s pacifism, the mood of the 1960s and younger collectors today [Economist]

A vandalized Banksy mural in Bristol via Bristol Evening Post

A popular Banksy mural in Bristol is vandalized as the Bristol Museum currently holds a major exhibition of the grafitti artist’s work [Bristol Evening Post via Arts Journal]
Jeff Koons describes Michael Jackson as a “contemporary Christ figure” [Bloomberg]
and Koons is now collaborating with watchmaker Ikepod to make a titanium watch [Newsweek]

Terence Koh in his studio via Whitewall

Terence Koh in his all white studio in New York [Whitewall]
Critic Jerry Saltz initiates a discussion with MoMA Chief Curator Ann Tempkin over the museum’s lack of female artists through Facebook [Edward Winkleman]
A Holocaust conference including 46 nations urges more efforts to restitute art stolen by Nazis [Bloomberg]

The Duveen Comission series presents a hitherto relatively unknown artist, Eva Rothschild, at the Tate Britain.  The exhibition consists of just one work, which fills the 70-meter space.  Accordingly, the piece explores volume and space, as it (per Tate) “fills and disrupts the grandeur of these neoclassical galleries with a chaotic, energetic presence.”  Says the artist, “I’m hoping to create something that will agitate the architecture of the Duveens Galleries, tangling with your perception of the space.”

Related links:
Tate Britain: British Art from 1500
Tate: Tate Britian Duveens Commission 2009 Supported by Sotheby’s
Lost in triangulation [The Guardian UK]
Eva Rothschild’s Tate Britain girders get an angle on high-minded art [Times UK]
Eva Rothschild to Create Tate Britain Duveens Commission 2009 [FineArtPublicity]
Little-known artist takes over the Tate [The Independent]

Eva Rothschild at Tate Britian, via The Guardian.

“Cold Corners” is constructed of 1.8 tons of aluminum box tubing, shaped into triangles that run the length of the gallery.  Viewers immediately find themselves inside the sculpture, interacting with the “scribble in space” which curator Katharine Stout has called Rothschild’s work.  (Though the interactive art didn’t go so far as to allow a pair of disappointed schoolboys to swing from the exhibit.)  This is the first time that Dublin-born Rothschild, who studied at Goldsmiths and has shown at The New Museum New York, Tate Triennial, and more, is presenting a work of such great size. Says Tate Britain director Stephen Deuchar, “we just thought it would be fun to see whether her small-scale work would translate on to a larger stage.”

Eva Rothschild at Tate Britian, via Art Knowledge News.

Eva Rothschild at Tate Britain, via the Guardian.

Duveens Commission became an annual show at Tate Britain after it gained sponsorship from Sotheby’s.  The first, in 2000, had Mona Hatoum creating a huge kitchen appliance.  Other artists it has presented include Anya Gallaaccio, Michael Landy, Mark Wallinger, and Martin Creed, the last of which had a stream of people run as fast as possible through the gallery in a work titled “Work No 850.”  With the newest Commission, comments Sotheby’s Bill Ruprecht, the annual event continues to “provide this important showcase for new work by British contemporary artists. Support for the broader cultural community is more important than ever.”

- Rivka Fogel

A collection of works by Henri Matisse is currently showing at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.  Comprised of 74 paintings, drawings, and sculptures, the exhibition focus on works of two subjects: odalisques and the sea, as seen through the windows of Nice.  The show runs through September 20, 2009.

Related links:
Matisse: 1917 – 1941 : Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Henri Matisse
Thyssen-Bornemisza Examines Matisse’s Work During the Central Period of His Career [ArtDaily]

Works featured in the show were completed between 1917 and 1941, a lesser known phase of Matisse’s art.  These years encompass two distinct periods: a gradual acceptance of modern art in the 1920’s, in contrast with an uncertain financial and political climate that marked the 1930’s, beginning with the Great Depression and ending in World War II.  Matisse’s work responds in kind.  Toward the end of the first World War, his work becomes more pictorial, to the extent that the artist moves to Nice (in search of inspiration for images), leaving his family in Paris.  It is his intent to forge a connection with the viewer based on their shared visuals: to that end, color and form work to reintroduce volume and space into a more realistic art, a “painting of intimacy.”  In 1930, however, Matisse is shaken out of his isolation in Nice with a commission from Philadelphia businessman Alfred Barnes.  The project has him producing more decorative art, in line with his earlier work, which – short of a brief hiatus in 1934 during which the artist returns to “painting of intimacy” – Matisse continues to produce until a major surgery in 1941 confines him to his bed.

Henri Matisse, Nu de dos IV (Back IV) (1930), at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Intérieur au violon (Interior with a Violin) (1917-1918), at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Intérieur à la boîte à violon (Interior with a Violin Case) (1918-1919), at Museo Thyssen Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Poppies (1919), at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Intérieur à Nice (Interior in Nice) (1920), at Museo Thyssen Bornemisza.

Born on December 31, 1869, Henri Emile Benoît Matisse lived in the textile town of Le Cateau-Cambrésis, in northern France on the edge of the Belgian border.  In 1887, he relocated to France to study law, passing the bar in 1888.  Soon, though, a bout of appendicitis in 1889 had him discovering painting, for lack of anything better to occupy his time.  In 1891 he began to study with the painter William Adolphe Bouguereau at the Académie Julian, leaving not soon after to work with the more experimental painter Gustave Moreau.  By 1896, Matisse was elected associate member of the Sociéte Nationale, showing paintings at its annual Salon de la Sociéte.  A mostly unsuccessful first solo show in 1904 was nonetheless followed by the beginnings of an artistic community in Collioure. Matisse brought together the artists that would contribute to the Fauve movement, after which he continued to experiment, traveling and attaching himself to different gatherings of avant-garde artists.

Henri Matisse’s Portrait de Marguerite endormie (Portrait of Marguerite asleep) (1920), at Museo Theyssen Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Femmes au canapé ou Le Divan (Women on a couch or The Divan), at  Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Conversation Under the Olive Trees (1921), at Museo Thyssen- Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Le Paravent mauresque (The Moorish Screen) (1921), at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

The exhibition at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza is organized into sections, based on form. They are as follows: painting and time; landscapes, balconies, and gardens; intimacy and ornament; background and figure; form: the nude; and finally, une sonore vaine et monotone ligne, the flat, monotonous lines that characterize much of Matisse’s work after 1930.

Henri Matisse’s Femme assise, le dos torné vers la fenêtre ouverte (Seated Woman, Back Turned to the Open Window) (c. 1922), at  Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Pianist and Checker Players (1924), at Museo Thyssen- Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Odalisque au tamourin (Odalisque with a Tambourine) (1925-26), at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Deux Odalisques dont l’une dévetue, fond ornemental et damier (Two Odalisques, One Undressed, Ornamental Background and Checkerboard) (1928), at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Le Chapeau jaune (The Yellow Hat) (1929), at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s La Danse – deuxiéme versión, étde d’ensemble (Study for the Dance Mural Composition, second version), (1932-33), at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s L’Odalisque, Harmonie Blueue (1937), currently showing at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Via Art Knowledge News.

Henri Matisse’s La Robe bleue refletée dans la glace (Small Blue Dress before a Mirror) (1937), at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Henri Matisse’s Nature mote à la dormeuse (Still Life with Sleeping Woman) (1940), at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

- Rivka Fogel

“The Living and the Dead” is a collaborative show of over 50 artists, including Amy Yao, Brian Belott, Anicka Yi, Uri Aran, George Condo, Justin Matherly, Haim Steinback, and dozens of others. The art is an almost bewildering mix of styles and mediums, ranging from wooden statues to fishing poles, giant ice cubes, elastic, and deep-fried q-tips.  The show opened last night at Gavin Brown`s Enterprises, and runs from July 1st – Aug. 7th.

Related Links:
Gavin Brown’s Enterprise [Official Site]
Summer Group Shows, Part II [Artnet]

The writing on the wall at Gavin Brown`s Enterprise reads The whole world + the work = the whole world, and “The living and the dead” is curated accordingly.  The show is a mish-mash collage of provocation, implication, silliness, and the occasional profound beauty – with pieces like George Condo`s painting The Apparition“, Uri Aran`s video “The Donut Gang”, and Justin Matherly`s sculpture, “The terror that so often accompanies involuntary defecation”.

Among the first to greet the entering viewer from a line-up of over 50 artists and emergents is the work of Scott Penkava, a giant pile of multi-colored Legos spilling out unto the floor which “weighs 180 pounds, the weight of the average person.”  “It’s basically my thank you to Felix Gonzales Torres.” Says Penkava.  The piece is aptly named “Untitled (Portrait of Felix in NY)”, and in honor of the original piece (a 175 lb pile of candy the weight of (and in honor of) the artist’s dead lover which was continually replenished), the Legos are to be played with, not just looked at.” Nearby, an massive ice cube is melting, slowly releasing the rope tied to many smiley-faced yellow balloons.  Ronkom’s Counco AC 500 change maker in the wall offers change for dollar bills, but only gives back 75 cents.

- Photos by Michael Bartelle.

Team Gallery’s current exhibition is a group show of three video artists from the gallery’s roster: Cory Arcangel, Guillaume Pinard, and Jon Routson. It follows a similar three-person show of abstract work by its artists in January. The exhibition includes a number of video pieces, in both large and small formats, as well as a sound piece by Routson and two prints by Arcangel in his Photoshop series – a similar print was in the New Museum’s triennial, Younger Than Jesus.

Arcangel, Pinard, Routson [Team Gallery]
Arcangel, Pinard, Routson @ Team [This Heart's On Fire]

Installation view of ‘Arcangel, Pinard, Routson’ via Team Gallery

Arcangel, a new media darling, contributed a video titled ‘Drei Klavierstücke, op. 11,’ an arrangement of YouTube footage of “keyboard cats,” a popular YouTube trend where cat owners posted videos of their cats on pianos.  Arcangel took clips from a banal but slapstick sensation and edited them so that the cats appeared to play Arnold Schoenberg’s ‘Three Piano Pieces,’ one of the first atonal compositions. The Photoshop prints were made by adjusting the program’s gradient tool, selecting an area to blow up and display as an abstract work of art. Both continue Arcangel’s exploration and mediation of changing technologies and their relationship to the sublime.

Still from Guillaume Pinard’s ‘Avril’ via Team Gallery

Pinard makes short films using Flash animation, creating whimsical, brightly colored landscapes and absurd animal and insect characters that contrast with the violence and decay of the action taking place.

Installation view of Jon Routson’s ‘Spinners’ via Team Gallery

Routson has two pieces in the exhibition. The first is a sculpture that plays books on tape, ranging from respected literature to throwaway thrillers, in a commentary of the glut of entertainment available online without the time for the complete consumption of any one thing. Also shown is work from Routson’s Spinners series, projections of rotating circular images meant to induce unease and nausea, especially when showing images such as Dick Cheney, nipples, or Terry Schiavo.

Cory Arcangel’s ‘Photoshop CS- 84 by 66 inches, 300 DPI, RGB, square pixels, default gradient “Russell’s Rainbow” (turn transparency off), mouse down y=25180 x=15100, mouseup y=1400 x=6400′ via Team Gallery

‘Arcangel, Pinard, Routson’ runs June 26-July 31, 2009 at Team Gallery at 83 Grand St. in New York.

Guillaume Pinard’s ‘Vladimir’ via Team Gallery

Installation view of ‘Arcangel, Pinard, Routson’ via Team Gallery

Cory Arcangel’s ‘Photoshop CS- 84 by 66 inches, 300 DPI, RGB, square pixels, default gradient “Spectrum”, mousedown y=8900 x=15,600, mouse up y=13,800 x=0′ via Team Gallery

Still from Jon Routson’s ‘Spinners’ via Team Gallery

Still from Cory Arcangel’s ‘Drei Klavierstücke, op. 11′ via Team Gallery

Still from Guillaume Pinard’s ‘Provisional End’ via Team Gallery

Installation view of ‘Arcangel, Pinard, Routson’ via Team Gallery

Installation view of Jon Routson’s ‘Spinners’ via Team Gallery

Still from Cory Arcangel’s ‘Drei Klavierstücke, op. 11′ via Team Gallery

After weeks of negotiation with the Attorney General’s office, J. Ezra Merkin has agreed to sell an art collection appraised by Christie’s at $310 million.  After taxes and other fees — the New York Times reports that Merkin was paying $60,000 a month on insurance, and owed $42 million to previous owners as well as $19.3 million on a loan used to purchase the artwork — profits from the sale amount to $191 million, to be frozen in escrow pending the outcome of the Attorney General’s suit against the suspected Bernie Madoff feeder.

Related links:
Statement from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on the Sale of J. Ezra Merkin’s Collection
Merkin Reaches Accord with Cuomo on Art Sale [New York Times]
Madoff, Merkin, and the Murals [Wall Street Journal: The Wealth Report]
Merkin Selling Art Frozen in Lawsuit for $310 Million [Bloomberg]
Andrew Cuomo Unveils Deal to Sell Art Collection of Ezra Merkin, Bernie Madoff’s Associate [New York Post]

Sold to an anonymous buyer, the collection comprises fifteen pieces, including two sculptures by Alberto Giacometti and twelve Rothko paintings.  The sale, “if our litigation is successful,” says Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, “will provide restitution to victims of Mr. Merkin’s alleged fraud.”  Ezra Merkin is accused of funneling money into Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and deceiving his clients about those investments.  He is also being sued by New York University, which lost $24 million in Ariel, a fund which Merkin managed. Yeshiva University has also pursued litigation against the investor, saying that it explicitly told Merkin not to place its money with Madoff, a request which Merkin ignored.  Merkin continues to maintain his innocence, claiming that he knew nothing of the $65 billion fraud which beggared some Madoff clients and which has landed the financier a 150-year prison term.  The defendant’s lawyer, Andrew Levander, has said that Merkin and his family “are among the largest victims” of the scheme, and that “the lawsuits are without merit.”

- Rivka Fogel

Currently showing at the Greta Meert Gallery in Brussels are seven pieces from the latest series by American artist John Baldessari. The selection represents a continuation of previous series, in which Baldessari explored fragmented body parts, abstraction of facial expressions and the relationship between separate parts and the whole.   His former series, which came under the titles of ‘Noses & Ears, Etc.’, ‘Arms & Legs (Specif. Elbows & Knees)’, Etc, and ‘Prima Facie, Etc.’, in addition to his work at large, has emphasized the symbiotic relationship between painting and photography. In effect, Baldessari, who has shown in more than 200 solo and 900 group exhibitions in the United States and Europe, has been credited for having helped to establish photography as a more established artistic medium.

Related Links:
Interview with John Baldessari. [Artnet]
John Baldessari. [Baldessari]
Baldessari and Ono Win Golden Lions. [LATimes]
John Baldessari. [ArtWorks]
Interview with John Baldessari. [Art and Culture]

John Baldessari, ‘Raised Eyebrows/Furrowed Foreheads: Bridge Collapsing , 2009′. Via ArtNet.

Along with Baldessari’s fascination with the body is his use of a kind of “hybrid, visual language;” one in which multiple interpretations are at play through the use of cuts, omissions and shifting meanings. “I’m really interested in what conceptual leaps people can make from one bit of information from another and how they can fill the space,” the artist has said. In his current series, which mixes humor and irony, abstract facial expressions suggest different emotions and mentalities, but the planes of the image are multiplied through editing, and physical consistency is given to the work through the use of masking paint. The effect is a kind of blurring of photography and painting; of reality and fiction. Former notions of artistic ‘discipline’ and ‘genre’ break apart and the viewer is forced to re-interpret the recognizable.

John Baldessari, ‘Raised Eyebrows / Furrowed Foreheads: Two Arms (Pointing in Opposite Directions), 2009.’ Via LikeYou.

John Baldessari, ‘Raised Eyebrows/Furrowed Foreheads: Knife (with Hands).’ Via ArtNet.

Born outside of San Diego, California during the Great Depression in 1931, Baldessari is the son of a Danish mother and Austrian father.  The artist attended San Diego State University and did graduate work at Otis Art Institute, Chouinard Art Institute, and the University of California at Berkeley. He taught at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA from 1970 to 1988 and at the University of California at Los Angeles from 1996 to 2007. His work can be found in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., the Tate Collection, London, and the Pompidou Center in Paris, France.

John Baldessari’s ‘Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads: (Black and White eyebrows)’, was shown this past January at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York. Via TimeOut.

The artist in his Studio in Venice, California, 2005. Photograph by Catherine Opie. Via John Baldessari Catalogue Raisonné.

Known for having worked with a wide array of media, Baldessari is believed to have revolutionized the language of art, while opening up new opportunities for conceptual expression.

A portrait of John Baldessari by Sidney B. Felsen, 2007. Via Baldessari.

“Raised Eyebrows/Furrowed Foreheads” will be exhibited at the Greta Meert Gallery in Brussels until July 25th, 2009.

-Georgia Suter

Jeff Koons’s first major exhibition in a public gallery in England opens tomorrow.  The show at the Serpentine features works drawn from public and private holdings, and some new works on display for the first time.  The “Popeye Series” “creates a world beyond taste,” appropriation art at its finest.  The extraordinary and the mundane are put side by side: Popeye and and Olive Oyl are embedded in multi-layered paint.  Garbage cans and chairs, chains and even the occasional inflatable, are put to use in the sculptures of the “Popeye Series.”

Related links:
Jeff Koons: Serpentine Gallery
Jeff Koons Presents Works from his Popeye Series at the Serpentine Gallery in London [Artdaily]
‘Popeye’ exhibition by Jeff Koons comes to Serpentine Gallery [Times Online]
Koons, with eye for pop, brings Popeye show to UK [Reuters]
Jeff Koons Popeye Series At The Serpentine Gallery from July 2nd [FAD]
Jeff Koons is not just the king of kitsch [interview with the Guardian UK]

The Telegraph comments on the exuberance and humor in the Koons exhibition.

Jeff Koons, Caterpillar Ladder, at the Serpentine Gallery.

Koons’s work often addresses childhood, sexuality, consumerism, and banality.  This series is no different: it asks the audience to consider a well-known children’s character with adult ramifications.  Popeye originally addressed the hardships many suffered during the Great Depression.  In this current reframing of the cartoon, the character becomes a symbol of consumerism, and a maturation through consumerism.  Koons’s audience has grown up with Popeye, and with the everyday materials of which the series is constructed. Put another way, says Koons, “Maybe art is the spinach.”

Koons poses with a piece from his new exhibition at the Serpentine. via Reuters.

Acrobat, by Jeff Koons, at the Serpentine Gallery.

Jeff Koons, Hook, at the Serpentine Gallery.

Jeff Koons, Moustache, at the Serpentine Gallery.

Born in York, Pennsylvania, in 1955, Jeff Koons was a businessman on Wall Street before he first became known for exhibitions in the early 1980’s that featured basketballs in salt water and vacuum cleaners in glass cabinets.  Since then, he has shown in galleries around the world.  In 2008 alone, solo shows by the artist have been hosted by the Château de Versailles, France; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  Koons now lives and works in SoHo.

Jeff Koons, Olive Oyl, at the Serpentine Gallery.

Jeff Koons, Monkeys (Ladder), at the Serpentine Gallery.

Jeff Koons, Seal Walrus Trashcans, at the Serpentine Gallery.

Jeff Koons, Dogpool (Logs), at the Serpentine Gallery.

- Rivka Fogel

Rounding out the summer auctions, Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale took in £19.1 million, coming in around the lower end of estimates of £17.4-24 million.  35 out of 40 lots sold, with rates of 88% by lot and 86% by value.  The top selling lot was a large Peter Doig painting, ‘Night Painting,’ which sold for £3 million, quite above estimates of £1.5-2 million. According to the NY Times, collector François Pinault was overheard calling the sale “solid” and “serious.” Though the total value realized represents a 78% drop from last year, the high sell-through rate, consistent among the fine art auctions this season, shows that the market has settled enough for the auction houses to accurately gauge what buyers want.

Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction [Christie's]
Bidding Is Thin at Christie’s in London [NY Times]
Doig, Richter Sell as Christie’s London Auction Total Drops 78% [Bloomberg]
Market Motors Along at Christie’s Contemporary Sale [Artinfo]
Lot by Lot: Christie’s London Cont. Evening Sale [Art Market Monitor]
Lots of Profit at the Top [Artinfo]

Richard Prince’s ‘Country Nurse’ sold for £1.7 million, falling within estimates of £1.5-2 million, via Artinfo

Doig was also one of the top lots at Sotheby’s contemporary sale last week, and though prices are considerably below the £5.7 million record set at auction in 2007, the general impression is that the artist is one of the few who comes out relatively unscathed after price run-ups during the boom. That is not the case with Richard Prince, who historically is said to have benefited from young hedge fund wealth, a collecting base that has dried significantly since September. A painting from Prince’s Nurse series sold for £1.7 million, within estimates of £1.5-2 million, but much lower than prices fetched for similar works in the series that sold for upwards of £4.2 million a year ago. ‘Country Nurse’ was the auction’s only guaranteed lot, guaranteed by jeweller Laurence Graff, who joked that it was a move to make him “a bit of spending money” in an otherwise “boring sale.”

Gerhard Richter’s ‘1025 Farben’ sold for £1.4 million against estimates of £1.3-2 million, via Artinfo

The auction’s catalog cover, a rare Gerhard Richter color chart painting went for £1.4 million, coming short of the £1.3 low estimate before the buyer’s premium, and below the $4.1 million a similar work went for in May 2008. Another artist whose prices were down was Jeff Koons, with all three of his works selling below the hammer price, despite a major exhibition in London at the Serpentine Gallery. ‘Moustache,’ a send-up of Duchamp’s mustachioed Mona Lisa readymade, sold for £1.1 million against estimates of £1.2-1.8 million. Koons’s blockbuster Celebration series, of which ‘Hanging Heart’ sold for a record $23.6 million, was nowhere to be found in this round of sales after a relative flop in last May’s contemporary auction at Sotheby’s.

Jeff Koons’s ‘Moustache’ sold for £1.1 million, short of estimates of £1.2-1.8 million, via Artinfo

Alighiero Boetti’s ‘Rosso Gilera 60 1232, Rosso Guzzi 60 1305′ sold for £713,250, double estimates of £280,000-350,000 and setting a new record at auction for the artist, via Christie’s

Works by Alighiero Boetti did surprisingly well, with a diptych, ‘Rosso Gilera 60 1232, Rosso Guzzi 60 1305,’ setting a new record at auction for the artist at £713,250, far above estimates. Still, many artists whose work sold in the 8-digit range before the market crash are seeing considerably reduced prices with collectors holding onto the better, more valuable works by artists such as Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon.

Andy Warhol’s ‘Self-Portrait’ sold for £690,850, between estimates of £500,000-800,000, via Artinfo

Francis Bacon’s ‘Study For Portrait’ sold for £870,050 against estimates of £800,000-1.2 million, via Artinfo

Jean Dubuffet’s ‘La coiffeuse’ sold for £690,850 against estimates of £600,000-900,000, via Artinfo

Through July 11, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin is showing works by the late sculptor Duane Hanson.  The exhibition, titled “Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions),” is comprised of hyper-realistic depictions of lost souls, and loneliness, or taken literally, illusions of the lost.

Related links:
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin
Duane Hanson Biography [Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin]
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin – Duane Hanson [ArtSlant]

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

In this series, Hanson depicts the everyday, in both a scathing and lamenting indictment of the “American way of life.”  Present is the obesity on which contemporary artists often comment, and an air of discontent.  Fiberglass and resin allowed the artist to expose the particulars of his models, “people, workers, the elderly, all these people I [Hanson] see with sympathy and affection… the people who… now and then show the hard work and the frustration.”

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin. via Culture Kings.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

Born in Alexandria, Minnesota in 1925, Hanson attended both Luther College and the University of Washington, before graduating from Macalaster College in 1946.  He left a career teaching high school art to enroll in Cranbrook Academy’s MFA program, and upon obtaining the degree worked as a sculptor until his death from cancer in 1996.  His sculptural scenes are often controversial, and violent: Race Riot featured African American rioters and white policemen attacking each other, and corpses of American soldiers comprise Vietnam Scene. This exhibition is a relatively mild Hanson series.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

A look at the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin. via Parish Nation.

Duane Hanson has had solo shows at the Saatchi Gallery, London; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; O’Hara Gallery, New York; Daimaru Museum of Art, Tokyo; Neue Galerie des Stadt Linz, Wolfgang-Gurlitt-Museum, Linz, Austira; Pennsylvania Academy of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and more.  Since his death, both the Columbus Museum of Art and the Michener Museum of Art have hosted retrospectives of his work, and the series “Sculptures of the American Dream” has been hosted by galleries across Europe.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

- Rivka Fogel

Phillips de Pury’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale realized £5.1 million last night, missing its low estimate of £5.4 million.  With a much smaller and deeply discounted offering compared to last year’s sale, Phillips sold 30 out of 39 lots for a 77% sold-by-lot rate, beating last year’s rate of 66%.  However, this year’s totals represent a 79% decrease in value as last year’s sale brought in £24.5 million.  Conservative estimates helped, with many lots selling above their estimates.  The highest selling lot was Ed Ruscha’s fittingly titled ‘That Was Then This Is Now,’ going for £713,250, including buyer’s premium, putting it in the middle of estimates of £600,000-800,000.

Contemporary Art Evening Sale [Phillips de Pury]
Ruscha Canvas Leads a London Sale [NY Times]
Phillips Contemporary: That Was Then, This Is Now [Artinfo]
Phillips Sells 77% of Contemporary Art in London on Discounts [Bloomberg]

Richard Prince’s ‘Spiritual America IV’ failed to meet its reserve, with estimates of £400,000-600,000, via Phillips de Pury

The only spectacular failure was an artist’s proof of Richard Prince’s ‘Spiritual America IV,’ a 2005 re-staged version of the appropriated photo of a naked, 10-year-old Brooke Shields that brought him critical acclaim and attention in 1983. With estimates of £400,000-600,000, bidding stopped at £280,000, below the reserve.

John Chamberlain’s ‘Mr. Moto’ sold for £529,250, within estimates of £400,000-600,000, via Phillips de Pury

The second highest lot was John Chamberlain’s ‘Mr. Moto,’ which £529,250, within estimates of £400,000-600,000. The most exciting moment of the evening was the ten-minute-long bidding war between two telephone bidders over Jack Goldstein’s ‘Untitled,’ going up at £1,000 increments before finally selling for £121,250, far above estimates of £20,000-30,000. An untitled painting by Yue Minjun sold for £421,250, well above estimates of £250,000-300,000, proving that the once hot Chinese contemporary market hasn’t completely tanked. However, an untitled painting by Zhang Xiaogang failed to sell against estimates of £300–400,000.

Jack Goldstein’s ‘Untitled’ sold for £121,250, far above estimates of £20,000-30,000, via Phillips de Pury

Despite diminished sales, moods were generally high, with a consensus that the market has finished its free fall. Solid sales at Sotheby’s Contemporary Sales last week have given buyers and sellers confidence. Tonight’s auction at Christie’s will perhaps provide a more definite gauge of the market going into the slow summer season.

Mark Grotjahn’s ‘Untitled (large colored butterfly white background 10 wings)’ sold for £145,250, above estimates of £70,000-100,000, via Phillips de Pury

Jeff Koons’s ‘Mermaid Troll’ sold for £241,250, below estimates of £250,000-350,000, via Phillips de Pury

Yue Minjun’s ‘Untitled’ sold for £421,250, well above estimates of £250,000-300,000, via Phillips de Pury

Kehinde Wiley’s ‘Passing/Posing – St. Helena’ sold for £51,650, above estimates of £25,000-35,000, via Phillips de Pury

Damien Hirst’s ‘Beautiful Lazarides Inc. Auction Spinny Thingy Where Will It All End, Money For Old Rope, Buy This You Bugger, Its Got Kline Blue Bloody Splashes In It For Fuck’s Sake, Love You Really Painting (with xxxxx)’ sold for £193,250, above estimates of £100,000-150,000, via Phillips de Pury

Dan Graham’s first U.S. retrospective is currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The artist’s work has been highly influential since the 1960’s.  He has close personal and professional ties with Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin and Mel Bochner and as of yet his work has been seldom collected or recognized in the U.S. The show features a comprehensive sampling of his body of work in media including installation, text pieces, performance and site specific sculpture. At the core of his work, Graham is investigating public and private cultural systems and the extent to which his playful, often comic, interference can alter the way individuals relate to their surroundings, themselves and others.

Dan Graham: Beyond [Whitney Museum of American Art]
Dan Graham: Be My Mirror [Art in America]
Retrospective of Pioneering Artist Dan Graham Opens at Whitney Museum [ArtDaily]
Dan Graham: Artist’s Talk 2007 [Tate Modern]
Interview with Dan Graham [Museo Magazine]
Dan Graham: A Round Peg [NY Times]
Dan Graham – Whitney Museum of American Art [ArtForum]

Dan Graham, Figurative,1965; published March 1968 in Harper’s Bazaar. Via Whitney Museum of American Art

Graham’s role as co-founder and director of the short-lived John Daniels Gallery effectively forged the relationship that Graham would have with artists, the conceptual and minimalist movements and the art market for years to come. The financial demise of the gallery made it necessary for the artists to move back into his family home. The images featured in Homes for America were culled from the artist’s daily commute to and from New York City. Homes for America, first realized as a slide-show and later published as a magazine photo essay, would be his first installment of highly un-collectable and difficult to categorize works.

Dan Graham, Homes for America, 1966-67 via Marian Goodman Gallery

The subjects in Homes for America and the work of his contemporaries including Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt, piqued Graham’s interest in depersonalized constructed environments, both urban and suburban, and their imposition on contemporary life. Graham’s later works forced a sort of re-personalization where the audience is often subject and their private and public selves/lives are blurred.

In Performer/Audience/Mirror, Graham stood in front of a mirrored dance studio and verbalized actions as both he and the viewers were taking them to an audience that was seated directly behind him.

Dan Graham, Performer/Audience/Mirror, 1975/1977

The visual of a reluctant community, individuals adjusting themselves and drawn to their own reflection rather than that of the artist, is central to the piece and serves as an indicator of the mirrored constructions that will monopolize Graham’s work since the 1970’s.

The clean lines and simple reflective surfaces of what the artist calls “pavilions” clearly link these Mirrored sculptures with minimalistic tendencies. However the artist does not wish to illuminate pure aesthetic forms. Graham intends to promote and deconstruct self awareness.

Dan Graham, Pavilion, 2001

The artist, who only reluctantly refers to himself as such, makes his observations regarding self awareness via the audiences self reflection. The viewer becomes viewed, the subject objectified and the private is made public.

Other notable works in the exhibition include Detumescence, 1966; published August 1969 in the New York Review of Sex. Detumescence is an objective account of the male post-coital experience, simultaneously clinical and comical. Rock my Religion is a looped video piece that evidences Graham’s long term interest/involvement with Alternative Rock Music. The video collage seeks to link Punk with Puritan, mosh pit with prayer circle.

Installation view of Dan Graham: Beyond at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Dan Graham: Beyond is co-curated by Bennett Simpson of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Chrissie Iles of the Whitney Museum of American Art. The exhibition will be on view until October 11th.

-Emilie Keldie

Until August 23, Museum Küeppersmühle is exhibiting 80 paintings by legendary German artist Gerhard Richter.  Comprised of works drawn from private collections Burda, Ströher, Böckman, and the artist’s own,  ”Paintings from Private Collections” is an exploration of colors, of their uses and limitations.  Works included span much of the artist’s career, from the early 60’s to 2007.

Related links:
Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter at the MKM
Gerhard Richter: Paintings from Private Collections on View at Museum Küeppersmühle [Artdaily]
Gerhard Richter ~ Paintings from Private Collections at Museum Kueppersmuehle (MKM) [Art Knowledge News]
Gerhard Richter Portraits [National Portrait Gallery]
Gordon Burn on the paintings of Gerhard Richter [The Guardian UK]

Designed by Götz Adriani, the exhibition has previously been hosted by the Museum Frieder Burda, in Baden-Baden; Vienna’s Albertina; and the National Gallery Complex in Edinburgh.  At the MKM, a collection room complementary to the exhibit will remain open to visitors, home to other Richter paintings from the Ströher collection.

Gerhard Richter’s Family at the Seaside, at MKM.

Gerhard Richter, XL 513, at MKM. via Art Knowledge News.

Primarily a painter, Richter has experimented with photography and portraits, blurring his art as it seeks to comment on the ambiguity of reality and interpersonal relationship.  A portrait by its very nature is removed from the subject, and Gerhard makes the viewer aware of this fact — that art is only the “semblance” of its object.  ”I believe in nothing,” Richter has famously said, and this belief has bled into the artist’s work.  His art, especially early work with the Capitalist Realists, often reacts against imposition of ideology, given his formative years in Nazi Germany.  Richter “wanted to find a new way of painting that would not be constricting.”  That is, his belief in “nothing” allows the artist to explore and render the reality of the object in different ways, so that the only “unifying thing” in Richter’s work, comments Damien Hirst, is “the surface. The subject matter is secondary.”

Gerhard Richter’s Junge Baker (Boy Baker), from “Paintings from Private Collections.” Courtesy of the artist.

A color chart from Gerhard Richter’s “Paintings from Private Collections,” this one Achtzehn Farbtafein (Eighteen Colour Charts). Courtesy of the artist.

Gerhard Richter’s Olympia, from “Paintings from Private Collections.” Courtesy of the artist.

Given his exploration of different styles, Richter walks a fine line when it comes to modification of the image.  Says the Museum of Modern Art’s Kirk Vanedoe, Richter “shuttles between a form of photographic realism and a form of abstraction.”  Richter wavers between advocating the purity of image and modifying it.  He often blurs his portraits, imposes colors on his images, and so forth, but he has also claimed that ”many amateur photographs are more beautiful than a Cézanne.”  Put another way, Richter changes the image only insofar as his modifications are warranted: only as they reflect what he sees as the image’s reality.

Gerhard Richter, Party, in “Paintings from Private Collections.” via Art Tattler.

Gerhard Richter, Alfa Romeo, in “Paintings from Private Collections.” via Art Tattler.

Gerhard Richter, Motorboat, in “Paintings from Private Collections.” via Art Tattler.

Gerhard Richter, Tote, in “Paintings from Private Collections.” via Art Tattler.

Born in Dresden in 1932, Richter studied at the Dresden Art Academy in East Germany, and at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.  Since his first solo exhibition at the Mobelhaus Berges, Düsseldorf in 1963, Richter was Germany’s representative at the 1972 Venice Biennale, and has shown four times at the Documenta in Kassel, where he was awarded the Arnold Bode and Oskar Kokoschka Prizes.  The recipient of the 1967 Junger Westen Prize, Richter was first featured in the United States at New York’s Reinhard Onnasch Gallery in 1973.  MoMA has organized two retrospectives of the artist’s work, the first in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

A picture of the artist.  via DenverArts.

Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild, Courbet (Abstract Painting, Courbet), in “Paintings from Private Collections.” via daylife.

Gerhard Richter, Krems, in “Paintings from Private Collections.” via Art Tattler.

Gerhard Richter, Decke, from “Paintings from Private Collections.” via Art Tattler.

Gerhard Richter, Pavilion, in “Paintings from Private Collections.” via Art Tattler.

Gerhard Richter, Mustang-Staffel, in “Paintings from Private Collections.” via Art Tattler.

- Rivka Fogel

Currently showing at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais is a selection from the thousand or so portraits that Andy Warhol painted in 1962 and onwards.  During that time, Warhol produced commissioned portraits of film and rock stars, fashion designers, artists, politicians and more obscure personalities using his signature technique–silkscreens, reproduced serially.  A pioneer of the Pop Art movement, his use of image repetition was seen as a commentary on the nature of consumer society and mass culture, and his focus on personalities contributed to a revival of portraiture at large. As the artist prophetically put, “All my portraits have to be the same size, so they’ll all fit together and make one big painting called Portraits of Society.  That’s a good idea, isn’t it? Maybe the Metropolitan Museum would want it someday.”

Related links:
Hidden Depths: Paris Exhibition Aims to Paint Warhol as a Modern Master [GuardianUK]
Andy Warhol’s World Wide Comes to Paris [Reuters]
Saint Laurent Portraits Out of Warhol Show [NYTimes]
The Endless Fifteen Minutes [NYMag]
Christie’s Seeking Buyer for Warhol Mao in Hong Kong [ArtInfo]
Warhol Sales Make $10.5 Million as Sotheby’s Turns to Big Names [Bloomberg]

Andy Warhol ‘Jean-Michel Basquiat,’ 1982. Warhol collaborated with Basquiat, the American graffiti artist, in the 1970s and 1980s.Via Antiques.

Andy Warhol, ‘Ethel Scull 36 times,’ 1963, was commissioned by Ethel’s husband and wealthy arts patron, Robert, who had seen Warhol’s famous Marilyn Monroe screen prints. Taken in automatic photo booths, Warhol helped Scull smile in each shot by telling jokes. Via TheFirstPost.

The exhibition, organized by the Reunion des Musees Nationaux, in collaboration with The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, marks the first time that a French museum has exhibited Warhol’s work since his death in 1987. Curated by Alain Cueff, an art historian and professor at the University of Lille III, the show is specially designed to function as a retrospective; a re-examination of Warhol’s screen prints, polaroids and films which have never been shown all together before. “Warhol is so famous that we’ve become lazy, we don’t want to look closer at what he was doing,” said Cueff. “If we simply stick to the pop art label, his work will never be understood. Now, 21 years after his death, it’s time to look again at the contradictions of an artist who was often misunderstood. He said he wanted to come across as empty and superficial, yet beyond the immediate seduction of his work is a visual precision and a very demanding artist.”

Andy Warhol, ‘Brigitte Bardot’, 1974. Warhol painted a series of eight ‘Brigitte Bardot’ paintings when the French star was 39 years old, at the height of her fame. Via Artforum.

Featuring other portraits of renowned figures including Mick Jagger, Mao Zedong, Edward Kennedy and Vladimir Lenin, the exhibition brings together an eclectic collection of personalities, designed to reflect Warhol’s image of an entire society; a “wide world.”

Inside the Grand Palais; an installation view of the Warhol retrospective. Via ChinaDaily

In 1972 Warhol produced 4  portraits of the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, based on a photo on the cover of the Little Red Book. This print of  Mao, wearing pink lipstick, is on loan from a private collector in London for the exhibition. Via BBC.

Visitors look at a selection of portraits by Warhol. The exhibition brings together roughly 150 pieces of the artists work.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928, Warhol studied art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology before moving to New York City, where he worked as an illustrator and commercial artist in the 1950s. In 1960, Warhol began using the photo-silkscreen process to make pictures based on iconic American products and advertising images. During this time he founded his first studio, ‘The Factory,’ which became a meeting place and social hub for assistants, artists and musicians such as Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Truman Capote and Mick Jagger. It was here in the studio where Warhol developed his systematic and repetitive process of photographing models with a ‘Big Shot’ Polaroid, selecting shots, then painting and silk–screening the portraits.

Inside “The Factory,” where Warhol developed his signature artistic process. Via CanadianArt.

A portrait of Andy Warhol by Robert Mapplethorpe. 1986. Via NYMag.

The exhibition, which is sponsored by LVMH, is believed to serve as a kind of an ‘unprecedented archive‘ in the history of painting and photography. It will run until July, 13th 2009.

–Georgia Suter

Currently on view at Tate Modern is a ground-breaking exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Futurist Movement.  Launched in 1909 by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti with the publication of the Manifesto of Futurism on the front page of the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, the Futurist Movement borrowed elements from Cubism and Divisionism in order to create a new style that broke free from tradition and expressed the energy and dynamism of modern life.

The exhibition highlights the work of key Futurists such a Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini as well as works by other major artists such as Braque, Malevich and Duchamp.

New Worlds: Futurism at Tate Modern [The Guardian]
Review: Futurism Falls Flat at Tate Modern [The Guardian]
Closet Thinker: Fashion goes back to the Futurists [The Telegraph]
Celebrating Futurism at the Tate Modern [Fadwebsite]
Futurism at the Tate Modern: A Glimpse into Tomorrow’s Whirl [The Telegraph]
Tate Modern: Futurism [The Art Newspaper]
Tate Modern Marks Futurism Centenary with new show [Reuters]
Tate Modern Show brings pivotal Futurist art works together for first time [This is London]
Tate Modern Presents Today First Large-Scale Showing of Futurism in Britain in Thirty Years [Artdaily]
The Futurists’ Futile Chase After Motion [NY Times]
‘Futurism’ at Tate Modern [FT]
Secret Bansky Show Opens Tomorrow [Artinfo]
Bansky back in Bristol for biggest British Exhibition [The Telegraph]

Dynamism of the Human Body (1913) by Umberto Boccioni, via The Guardian

A group of core artists including Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini made up the Futurist Movemen t. In their work they celebrated modern technology, speed and industrialism.  Often they depicted cars, trams and airplanes through the use of bold and energetic colors.

Forces of the Street (1913) by Umberto Boccioni,’ via The Guardian

The Tate brings together works from the original Futurist exhibition of 1912 that was held at the Galerie Bernheim in Paris and traveled to the Sackville Gallery in London and then throughout Europe.   The current display recalls the impact of the 1912 exhibit yet goes further with the examination of the relationship between Cubism and Futurism and how the two movements became linked. The exhibit also shows the influence of Futurism in Britiain and Russia and elements of the movement are found echoed in Vorticism and Russian Futurism.

The Cyclist (1913) by Natalya Goncharova, via The Guardian

Highlights of the exhibition include Umberto Boccioni’s sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913), Carlo Carrà’s Funeral of the Anarchist, Galli (1911), Jacob Epstein’s Torso in Metal from the Rock Drill (1913-14) and Picasso’s Pipe, Glass, Bottle of Vieux Marc (1914) where he also pasted a copy of the Futurist periodical, Lacerba.

The Revolt (1911) by Luigi Russolo, via Tate Modern

‘Futurism’ is the first exhibition focused on Futurism to take place in Britain in 30 years. The show goes through September 20th.

La Danse du Pan-Pan au Monico (1959-60) by Gino Severini via The Guardian

Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in London yesterday realized £25.5 million, near the top of its estimates of £19.8-27.4, with one of the highest ever sell-through rates as only 3 of the 40 lots went unsold. The pared down sale is only a quarter of the value of last June’s sale, but along with solid results at Christie’s and Sotheby’s Impressionist sales earlier this week and brisk sales at Art Basel two weeks ago, the art market appears to have hit its bottom and has started to stabilize.  However, the highest selling lot was Andy Warhol’s ‘Mrs. McCarthy and Mrs. Brown (Tunafish Disaster),’ selling for just £3.7 million, at the low end of estimates of £3.5-4.5 million, nowhere near the blockbuster prices of a year ago.

Contemporary Evening Sale [Sotheby's]
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction Realised $41.9 Million in London [Artdaily]
Buyers for Warhol and Calder [NY Times]
Warhol Sales Make $10.5 Million as Sotheby’s Turns to Big Names [Bloomberg]
Slim and Conservative, Sotheby’s Sale Proves a Winner [Artinfo]
The London Art Scene Feels a Chill [Wall Street Journal]

Alexander Calder’s ‘A Cinq Morceaux de Bois’ sold for £2.6 million, far above its estimates of £1.2-1.8 million, via Sotheby’s

Many of the works offered in the sale were by older, established artists, and many had never been offered at auction before. Two other Warhol pieces, ‘Diamond Dust Shoes’ and ‘Hammer and Sickle,’ brought in £634,850 and £2 million, respectively, bring the Warhol total to £6.3 million.  Bidding throughout the sale was mainly restrained, but Alexander Calder’s ‘A Cinq Morceaux de Bois’ elicited some competition, selling for £2.6 million, more than double its low estimate of £1.2 million.  Peter Doig’s ‘Almost Grown,’ the catalogue cover lot, also bested estimates, going for £2.1 million. ‘Untitled (Dervish)’ set a new record at auction for Julie Mehretu, selling for £241,250, within estimates of £200,000-300,000.

Peter Doig’s ‘Almost Grown’ sold £2.1 million, beating estimates of £1.4-1.8 million, via Sotheby’s

Another success was Jean Dubuffet’s ‘Arabe Au Fusil,’ which sold for £903,650  against estimates of £500,000-700,000.  One of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s last works, ‘Exu,’ sold for £1.27 million, at the high end of estimates of £1.1-1.3 million. While May’s Contemporary auctions avoided artists considered endemic of inflationary speculations such as Damien Hirst or Takashi Murakami, there were a number of Hirst pieces up for sale this time, with a butterfly painting, ‘Homage to a Government, the Dwelling Place,’ selling for £657,250, within estimates of £500,000-800,000.  Overall, the sale had a rate of 92.5% sold by lot and a sold-by-value rate of 97.2%.

Julie Mehretu’s ‘Untitled (Dervish)’ sold for £241,250, within estimates of £200,000-300,000 and setting a new record at auction for the artist, via Sotheby’s

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s ‘Exu’ sold for £1.27 million, just under its high estimate of £1.3 million, via Sotheby’s

Andy Warhol’s ‘Hammer and Sickle’ sold for £2 million, falling at the low end of estimates of £2-3 million, via Sotheby’s

A retrospective of Cy Twombly’s work is currently showing, for the first time in Austria, at Museum Moderner Kunst [MUMOK].  On view until October 11, the exhibition includes 200 pieces, ranging in medium from photography to painting, sculpture to drawing, as well as graphic works.  The exhibition, curated by Achim Hochdorfer, features works drawn mostly from private holdings.

Related links:
Cy Twombly
MUMOK: Cy Twombly
First Retrospective for Cy Twombly in Austria at Museum Moderner Kunst in Vienna [Artdaily]
Cy Twombly – Sensations of the Moment – Restrospective [FineArtPublicity]
Cy Twombly’s Masterpieces Inaugurate Abbott Galleries for Special Exhibitions [FAD]
Museum Moderner Kunst (MUMOK) opens First Retrospective for Cy Twombly in Austria [Art Knowledge News]

Another look at Cy Twombly’s ‘Sensations of the Moment,’ at MUMOK.

‘Sensations of the Moment’ includes famous Twombly works as well as new pieces never before exhibited.  Twombly first became famous for his large-format paintings, influenced by classical mythology and poetics.  In contrast, his photos often reference his other works: for example,  Studio Gaeta (with Bacchus Paintings), below, makes use of the Twombly’s Bacchus paintings, hanging at the back of the studio.  The retrospective at MUMOK seeks especially to showcase Twombly’s little-known, continual work in photography since his time at Black Mountain College.

Above, four photos by Cy Twombly, at MUMOK.  From top, Still Life at Black Mountain College; Studio Gaeta (with Bacchus Paintings); Miramare – By the Sea; and Flowers II.

Born in 1928, Cy Twombly studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and at Virginia’s Washington and Lee University.  Twombly also spent a year at the Art Students League in New York with the late Robert Rauschenberg, with whom he later traveled, before transferring to Black Mountain College in North Carolina.  Twombly has taught at the Southern Seminary and Junior College in Buena Vista, Virginia, and currently lives in Italy.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, at MUMOK.

Cy Twombly, Empire of Flora, at MUMOK.

Cy Twombly, Cabbages (bright), at MUMOK.

Cy Twombly, By the Ionian Sea, at MUMOK.

From his first solo exhibition at the Kootz Gallery in New York, Twombly has shown at the 1964 Venice Biennale, with additional retrospectives of his work at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Kunsthaus Zürich; the Tate Modern, London; Musée National d’art Moderne, Paris; and MOMA.  ”Sensations of the Moment” is his first retrospective in Austria.

Cy Twombly, Apollo and the Artist, at MUMOK.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, at MUMOK.

Cy Twombly, Allesandro Twombly, Via Monserrato, at MOMUK.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, at MOMUK.

Cy Twombly, Hero and Leandro (To Christopher Marlowe), at MOMUK.

Cy Twombly, Ferragosto III, at MOMUK.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, at MOMUK.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, at MOMUK.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, at MOMUK.

Cy Twombly, Lemons, at MOMUK.

- Rivka Fogel

Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale last night in London yielded fairly strong results, due mainly to a slimmed down offering of high quality works. The 27 lot sale realized £33.5 million, towards the higher end of estimates of  £26.8-37.3 million, with only 4 lots going unsold and a sold-by-lot rate of 85.2% and a sold-by-value rate of 90.8%. Despite trouble finding sellers, choosing lots carefully paid off for Sotheby’s with spirited bidding throughout the auction. The sale’s big star, Picasso’s ‘Homme à l’épée,’ sold for £7 million against estimates of £6-8 million. Another late Picasso painting, ‘Nu debout,’ was the second-highest lot, selling for £4.3 million, above estimates of £3-4 million.

Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale Results [Sotheby's]
Sotheby’s Lean Strategy Pays Off [NY Times]
Sotheby’s London auction hits target at $55 million [Reuters]
Picasso’s $11.5 Million Musketeer Tops Sale as Bargains Hunted [Bloomberg]
Homme a l’epee Sells for 7 Million and Leads Sotheby’s Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art [Artdaily]
Lot by Lot: Sotheby’s I/M London Evening Sale [Art Market Monitor]
Picasso Musketeer Tops Sale by Sotheby’s [NY Times]
En Garde! Sotheby’s Sells Picasso Musketeeer Painting for $11.5 Million [WallStreetJournal]
Picasso musketeers duel at London auction houses [The Art Newspaper]
Sotheby’s Imp/Mod Sale Small but Solid [Artinfo]
Summing Up Sotheby’s I/M Evening Sale in London [Art Market Monitor]
Homme a l’epee Leads Sotheby’s Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art [Auction Publicity]

AO coverage of Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on Tuesday

Claud Monet’s ‘Route de Giverny en hiver’ sold for £3.8 million, near its £4 million high estimate, via Artdaily

Three sculptures by Alberto Giacometti fared well, realizing £7.4 million in total. The highest selling piece, ‘Diego (Tête au col roulé),’ went for £2.7, far above estimates of £1-1.5 million. Another sculptural work also did well, Barbara Hepworth’s ‘Three Standing Forms’ sold for £780,450, against estimates of £700,000-£1 million. A classic Monet painting, ‘Route de Giverny en hiver’ sold for £3.8 million, in the higher range of estimates of £3-4 million. Joan Miró’s painting, ‘Personnages devant l’oiseau-fusée qui s’enfuit’ sold for £959,650, well above estimates of £400,000-600,000. A painting by René Magritte, ‘La Lumière des Coïncidences,’ sold for £646,050, more than double its high estimate of £300,000.

Overall, Sotheby’s sale was considered a success, given the faltering art market and last May’s weak Impressionist and Modern auction. Buyers appear to be more confident, and Sotheby’s also said that they marked down estimates by about 25%. Still, the sale total is down 68% from last June’s figure of £102.2 million.

Yesterday’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Christie’s in London realized £37.2 million, falling shy of estimates of £37.8-51.7 million, including buyer’s premium. 30 of the 44 lots offered sold, with a rate of 68% sold by lot and 84% by value. The highlight of the sale was Monet’s ‘Au Parc Monceau,’ which sold for £6.3 million, far above its high estimate of £4.5 million. Joan Miró’s ‘Peinture (Femme se poudrant)’ also attracted spirited bidding, selling for just under £4 million, against estimates of £2.2-2.8 million. The star lot, a Picasso Musketeer painting, ‘Man with sword,’ sold for £5.8 million, in the lower end of estimates of £5-7 million. Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale takes places tonight in London.

Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Evening Sale Results [Christie's]
Only a Few Hills in the Valley of Christie’s Season-Opening Art Auction [NY Times]
£1.5m Pissarro painting looted by Nazis withdrawn from auction [Telegraph]
Christie’s London sale falls short of low estimate [Reuters]
Buyers Focus on Works Worth the Fight [NY Times]
Monet, Picasso Fetch $20 Million; Auction Shrinks 74% [Bloomberg]
Christie’s Auction of Impressionist and Modern Art in London Realises $60.4 Million [Artdaily]
Christie’s misfires on £37m Impressionist and Modern art sale [Wealth Bulletin]
Christie’s Kicks Off London Season With Modest Imp/Mod Sale [Artinfo]
Family wrangle halts sale of £1.5m Pissarro stolen by the Gestapo [TimesUK]
Family Dispute Halts Sale of Pissarro Stolen by Nazis [Artinfo]

Pablo Picasso’s ‘Homme à l’épée’ sold for £5.8 million, falling within estimates of £5-7 million, via Christie’s

While a number of lots achieved prices above their estimates, particularly those considered high quality. Many of the pieces that failed to sell were works considered to be sub-par examples of artists like Picasso or Alexej von Jawlensky.  But rarer works, like Paul Klee’s ‘Einblick in eine Stadt’ often sold above high estimates.  With the market still adjusting, auction houses are having a hard time finding sellers willing to part with quality works of art. Pricing remains an issue, too. Works within the £300,000-600,000 range sold poorly, with 7 out of 21 lots failing to sell.

Paul Klee’s ‘Einblick in eine Stadt’ sold for £385,250, above its high estimate, via Christie’s

A Pissarro painting, ‘Le Quais Malaquais et l’Institut,’ that had been put up for auction following a lengthy Nazi restitution case was withdrawn at the last minute due to a dispute over proceeds between descendants of the original owner.

Joan Miró’s ‘Peinture (Femme se poudrant)’ sold for just under £4 million, besting estimates of £2.2-2.8 million, via Christie’s

Camille Pissarro’s ‘Le Quais Malaquais et l’Institut’ was withdrawn from bidding due to family infighting, via Christie’s

Franz Marc’s ‘Springende Pferde’ sold for £3.7 million, within estimates of £3-4 million, via Christie’s

The Royal Academy of Arts, in collaboration with the BBC, has opened its 241st summer exhibition, showing until August 16.  The show is coordinated by Royal Academicians Ann Christopher, Eileen Cooper, and Will Alsop, and sponsored by Insight Investment.  The Summer Exhibition seeks to encompass a range of works, in all media, by both well-known and emerging artists.  Included are works of photography, sculpture and architecture, printmaking, film, and painting.  This year’s theme, “Making Space,” reflects the inclusive spirit of the exhibition, which the Times has called “the art world’s annual jumble sale.”

Related links:
Summer Exhibition [Royal Academy of Arts]
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2009 at Burlington House W1 [Times Online]
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2009, review [The Telegraph]
RA Summer Show [The Guardian UK]

Bryan Kneale’s Triton III, at the Royal Academy Summer Show. via Hart Gallery.

A Tracey Emin work at the Royal Academy Summer Show. via adage.com.

Tom Phillips, Wittgenstein’s Dilemma, at the Royal Academy Summer Show. via cass sculpture foundation.

Cy Twombly, The Rose (III), at the Royal Academy Summer Show. via The Guardian UK.

The annual Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open-submission show.  Featured artists include Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, Norman Ackroyd and Craigie Aitchison, and even the late Robert Rauschenberg.  Then there are the dark fairy-tales by Tom Hammick, contributed via open submission.

Ann Christopher’s White Light, at the Royal Academy Summer Show. via artnet.

Above, three looks at architecture at the Royal Academy Summer Show, via Building Design.  From top, Office, by Lynn Architects; Foster’s Faustino’s Winery; and Pier Gogh’s Canada Water Library model.

- Rivka Fogel